Without
by Anne Bowman
Summary: Things didn't really go the way John Kane planned, either.


AN: This is from John Kane's POV, just for a little change of pace before I try to wrap up some of my other stories. The song is "New Thing Now," by Shawn Colvin.

_this is your new thing now  
naked as a rose  
everything exposed  
but not quite  
_  
Other people dream of satisfaction and fulfillment but they never get anywhere near it, or at least not anywhere near their ideal of what it should feel like. I can honestly say that once I got close, I almost had those elusive concepts in my grasp. And then one night changed everything, and I've never come close again.   
  
For years I couldn't bring myself to speak of those days at all, could hardly stand to hear others say her name, or his. But lately things have been changing for both of us. I see her all the time now, in magazines, sometimes on television, or the newspaper when she passes through town. But she's different now, a different person from the girl I once knew. It's made it easier to speak to her, to think of her as someone else, because it seems to genuinely be true. She's got a new image every time I turn around, always on a comeback from the last comeback.

_this is your new thing now  
cards out on the table  
a genius with no label  
but not quite, not quite_

I was his friend first, of course. I met her when he did. They married; we all became inseparable, them, me, and whatever fortunate, adoring young girl I was courting at the time. Everything was almost perfect. But the deterioration started not long after the little one was born. He withdrew-from his family, from his music, from his life. He became obsessed, paranoid, distancing himself from everyone more and more, even his own children, who continued to adore him. She was damaged goods from day one, though, and to her this was just another desertion. She made one last great effort to save them all. She came to me, wanting me to try and convince him to get help, to fix himself, to bring him back to her.   
  
And I did try. But you couldn't have gotten through to him in that state unless you were superhuman, which I am not now nor have I ever been. So we commiserated, the band fell apart, he drifted deeper into his nasty little hobby, and she and I grew closer.

_sometimes I see the half and not the whole  
sometimes I see the face and not the soul  
sometimes I think this place has no part  
for anyone who ever had a heart _

I've read those interviews, we all have, where she says she "felt something" that night, she says she tried to warn him, make him stay. But I know what she felt, and it wasn't mysterious or supernatural or psychic. It was simply guilt, and I know because I felt it too, that night and a thousand nights afterward. That night, she was planning to tell him, or I liked to believe she was, although it could have been an empty promise, reiterated with a different deadline each time we were together. I don't know. It's easier to imagine her, in retrospect, as cold or uncaring, feeding off my affection, building her wounded ego back up. But in those days I never would have believed she was capable of that.

_this is your new thing now  
and it looks so good in print  
just a poet and her pimps  
but not quite  
_  
No, I don't resent what she's achieved since his death. I really don't. Sometimes, I know, I say things, maybe I gave an interview or two in an altered state back in the day. But I don't hold it against her. She's talented. She deserves it. Maybe it wouldn't have happened for her like this if he hadn't gone out that night, but what does it matter now? Maybe I could have had a chance too, if I hadn't been so wrecked back then. I don't mind what I've got now. I lost my mind for a while when I discovered I couldn't play anymore, but I picked myself back up, and maybe I've got her to thank.   
  
The last time she visited, I was out of my gourd, going on about aliens and whatnot, and I imagine it must have frightened her, like it was a curse or something, every man that's with her destined to go insane or something. But she took the time, before she left, to come and talk with me, and I won't go into the details, but, I don't know, it just made me feel a little better about the past and the future. God, it sounds pathetic, isn't it - but it isn't as if I hold out hope, if that's what you're thinking, for some grand reunion down the road.   
  
_this is your new thing now  
a prom dress and a sneer  
woman of the year  
but not quite, not quite_

We didn't speak for seven days after his death. Then she came around, looking for comfort and finding it. And afterward she just said, "This can never happen again." She composed herself, dressed, collected her things. The next time I saw her, a while later, she plastered on that false smile, acted like nothing had ever occurred between us that we might feel guilty about. I played with the kids, she made dinner, I came home, and we never spoke of it again. That's how my chance, the one I told you about, simply disappeared into thin air, and never passed me by again.  
  
And I swear this isn't resentment I feel now.

_gee, it's good to see a dream come true, people smile and bless all over you  
and don't you love the leader of the band, equal parts butthead and peter pan  
all the other kids are sad again  
a legend's not a legend 'til it ends  
_  
Over the years we kept in touch, but not as the people we once were as we once knew each other, but as the strangers we'd been before he unwittingly bound us together. When I urged-forced, maybe-her to tell Fiona about the hobby she and her father shared, I'd like to think that was my way of repaying my debt to his ghost.   
  
It's a nicer explanation than the other one that comes around more often, the one that says I acted maliciously, intending to drive she and her daughter further apart, divorce her from him even more. No. It was repayment of my debt to him. I suppose her disavowal of what we shared was simply her way of appeasing her own guilt, trying to fix things a little too late.

_this is your new thing now and it makes the whole world spin  
it's as least as old as sin, but not quite  
this is your new thing now, and now you're turning, grinning  
but maybe no one's listening, you might lose it all, my darling, yes you might_

So maybe we've both been forgiven now, by him. I pass by a church every day, walking home from the grocery store. I like to look at the sign, imagining that the pithy sayings that change weekly are a method of direct communication between God and me. Last week it said "Don't give up; Moses was once a basket case too." This week it simply says: "Forgiveness is canceling the debt." And I don't know why He's telling me that; I already did cancel that debt, a long time ago, when I agreed to help her out with that video, and when I called her up again to agree to help out with that record, too. She's forgiven me, whoever she is now, and I've forgiven her, though I don't think we agree about what's being forgiven or forgotten, what debt is being cancelled. 

_this is your new thing now  
and it feels so good to doubt you  
I could almost live without you  
but not quite..._

I felt that I was being punished for what I'd done when I got the call that he was dead, and then I felt that way again when my ability to play was taken away, but now I believe those were just warnings, the first one being that I should stop what I was doing--which I did, though not by choice--and the second being that if I didn't wake up and move forward, I'd lose the ability to do so.   
  
So I moved forward. I picked myself up off the ground. I wrote some songs for other people for a while, let them sing those songs from me to her, endless bitter descriptions of a failed love affair, of a torch stubbornly still burning and its angry bearer. Then I taught myself the piano, some of the old songs, some of the new. I play locally once in a while just to get that old feeling again. And sometimes, when I see a young girl in the back, leaning against the bar, or an infatuated soccer mom re-living her youth, I come close to feeling satisfied.   
  
But the only ones I still take home are the ones who remind me of her.


End file.
